The War Against Boys (35 page)

68.
 Memo from Marie Wilson, Ms. Foundation for Women, to groups and individuals working on Son's Day, March 29, 1996.

69.
 Ibid.

70.
 Ibid.

71.
 Elizabeth Gleick, “The Boys on the Bus,”
People
, October 30, 1992, p. 125. Quoted in Ruth Shalit, “Romper Room: Sexual Harassment—by Tots,”
The New Republic
, March 29, 1993, p. 13.

72.
 Nan Stein, “Secrets in Public: Sexual Harassment in Public (and Private) Schools,” Working Paper No. 256 (Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College, Center for Research on Women, rev. 1993), p. 4.

73.
 Merle Froschl et al., grant proposal to Department of Education for
Quit It!
Available through Educational Equity Concepts, New York, NY, 1997.

74.
 Education Equity Concepts and Wellesley College Center for Research on Women,
Quit It! A Teacher's Guide on Teasing and Bullying for Use with Students in Grades K–3
(New York and Wellesley, MA: Educational Equity Concepts and Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, 1998), p. 2.

75.
 Ibid., p. v.

76.
 “WEEA History,”
www.edc.org/WomensEquity
. The site is no longer active. The WEEA office was closed in 2003.

77.
 Katherine Hanson, “WEAA Equity Center Update,” memo, February 27, 1998.

78.
 Katherine Hanson, opening statement in
1999 Catalogue: WEEA Equity Center
(Washington, DC: US Department of Education, 1999).

79.
 Katherine Hanson and Anne McAuliffe, “Gender and Violence: Implications for Peaceful Schools,”
The Fourth R
(Newsletter of the National Center for Mediation in Education) 52 (August/September 1994).

80.
 Ibid., p. 1.

81.
 Katherine Hanson, “Gendered Violence: Examining Education's Role,” Working Paper Series (Newton, MA: Center for Equity and Cultural Diversity, 1995), p. 1.

82.
 Ibid.

83.
 Hanson and McAuliffe, “Gender and Violence,” p. 1.

84.
 Ibid., p. 2.

85.
 Ibid., p. 4.

86.
 Ibid., p. 3.

87.
 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Deaths: Final Data for 2009,”
National Vital Statistics Report
,
www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/deaths_2009_release.pdf
(accessed June 20, 2012).

88.
 Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice,
Crime in the United States: 1996
(Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1996). In 2009, the number of women who died by homicide was 3,673. See Division of Vital Statistics, “Deaths: Final Data for 2009,”
National Vital Statistics Reports
60, no. 3 (2011), p. 100.

89.
 Katherine Hanson, interview with author.

90.
 This is based on 1996 data, available in Division of Vital Statistics, “Deaths: Final Data for 1996,”
National Vital Statistics Reports
47, no. 9 (1998), p. 28.

91.
 See US Bureau of Justice Statistics,
Violence-Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments
(Washington, DC: US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999). See also Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Injury Visits to Hospital Emergency Departments, United States, 1992–1995
(Hyattsville, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, 1998). Of course, not every battered woman goes to an emergency room for treatment, and among those women who go to emergency rooms because of battery, some attribute their injuries to other causes. For a sober and reliable assessment of the incidence and severity of domestic violence, see Cathy Young,
Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality
(New York: Free Press, 1999). Noting that the Bureau of Justice study and the CDC study have underreported the incidence of domestic violence, Young says, “Even if we assume that four out of five such cases are missed, domestic violence would still be ranked far behind falls (27 percent of injuries) and automobile accidents (13 percent),” p. 105.

92.
 Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Crime in the United States, 1991
(Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1992), pp. 23–24. According to the FBI, “An estimated 106,593 forcible rapes were reported to law enforcement agencies across the nation during 1991. The 1991 total was 4 percent higher than the 1990 level” (p. 24). For more recent data, see
www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s./2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10tb101.xls
.

93.
 Hanson and McAuliffe, “Gender and Violence,” p. 3.

94.
 Ibid.

95.
 Katherine Hanson et al.,
More Than Title IX: How Equity in Education Has Shaped the Nation
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009). Biography on back cover.

96.
 Ms. Foundation,
Youth, Gender & Violence: Building a Movement for Gender Justice
, p. 4.

97.
 Jessie Klein,
The Bully Society: School Shootings and the Crisis of Bullying in America's Schools
(New York: New York University Press, 2012), p. 5.

98.
 Ibid., p. 79.

99.
 Ibid., p. 76.

100.
 Mayo Clinic, “Women's Health: Preventing the Top 7 Threats,”
www.mayoclinic.com/health/womens-health/WO00014/
(accessed July 4, 2012).

101.
 Klein, p. 71.

102.
 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Youth Behavior Risk Surveillance—United States 2009,”
Surveillance Summaries
, MMWR 2010: 59 (No. SS-5905).

103.
 US Department of Education,
1999 Catalogue: WEEA Equity Center
(Washington, DC: US Department of Education, 1999), inside cover. The WEEA Center offered an online course for Title IX coordinators,
www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-95-6/pdf/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-95-6.pdf
.

104.
 “Boy Suspended for Kiss on Cheek,” shortnews.com, February, 26, 2004,
www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=37334
(accessed June 20, 2012).

105.
 Scott James, “A Touch During Recess, and Reaction Is Swift,”
New York Times
, January 26, 2012,
www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/education/boy-6-suspended-in-sexual-assault-case-at-elementary-school.html
(accessed June 20, 2012).

106.
 “North Carolina Principal Forced to Retire After Suspending 9-Year-Old for Calling Teacher ‘Cute,' ” foxnews.com, December 8, 2011,
www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/07/north-carolina-principal-forced-to-retire-after-suspending-nine-year-old-for/
(accessed June 20, 2012).

107.
 Sharon Lamb, “Sex—When It's Child's Play,”
Boston Globe
, April 13, 1997.

108.
 Author interviews with parents, January and February 1998.

109.
 In talking about sex differences, it is important to bear in mind that the characterizations do not apply to all children. But the exceptions prove the rule. Although there are any number of gentle and shy boys who shrink from violence, it is said that boys are more aggressive than girls because
on the whole
they are. And although there are many girls who are less nurturing than the average boy, it is said that girls are more nurturing than boys because, on average, they are.

110.
 Eleanor Emmons Maccoby and Carol Nagy Jacklin,
The Psychology of Sex Differences
, vol. 1 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974), p. 352.

3.
Guys and Dolls

1.
 
Fox News in Depth
, June 5, 1997.

2.
 
Providence Journal Bulletin
, September 12, 1995.

3.
 See, for example, David Geary,
Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences
(Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2010); Steven Rhoads,
Taking Sex Differences Seriously
(San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004); Simon Baron-Cohen,
The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain
(New York: Basic Books, 2003); Jerre Levy and Doreen Kimura, “Men, Women and the Sciences,” in Christina Hoff Sommers, ed.,
The Science on Women and Science
(Washington, DC: AEI, 2010); Marco Del Giudice, Tom Booth, and Paul Irwing, “The Distance Between Mars and Venus: Measuring Global Sex Differences in Personality,”
PLoS ONE
, January 4, 2012, available at
www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0029265
(accessed August 20, 2012).

4.
 WEEA Publishing Center,
Gender Equity for Educators, Parents, and Community
(Newton, MA: WEEA Publishing Center, 1995), p. 1.

5.
 See, for example, Janet Hassett et al., “Sex Differences in Rhesus Monkey Toy Preferences Parallel Those of Children,”
Journal in Hormone and Behavior
54, no. 3 (August 2008), pp. 359–364. See also Sonya M. Kahlenberg and Richard W. Wrangham, “Sex Differences in Chimpanzees' Use of Sticks as Play Objects Resemble Those of Children,”
Current Biology
20, no. 24 (December 21, 2010), pp. R1067–R1068.

6.
 Doreen Kimura, “Sex Differences in the Brain,”
Scientific American
, Spring 1999, p. 27.

7.
 Ibid., p. 27.

8.
 Bonnie Raines,
Creating Sex-Fair Family Day Care: A Guide for Trainers
(Philadelphia and Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1991). The guide points out that the report was funded by the Department of Education and distributed under the auspices of its Women's Educational Equity Act, however, “no official endorsement of the Department should be inferred.” Nevertheless, with “Office of Educational Research & Improvement, US Department of Education” on the front cover, most readers will naturally assume the booklet has the imprimatur of the government. Indeed, it is easy to mistake it for an official government document.

9.
 Ibid., p. 80.

10.
 Ibid., p. 114.

11.
 Ibid., p. 113.

12.
 Ibid., p. 87.

13.
 Ibid., p. 26.

14.
 Myra Sadker and David Sadker,
Failing at Fairness: How America's Schools Cheat Girls
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994), p. 224.

15.
 Charlotte Zolotow,
William's Doll
(New York: HarperCollins, 1972), p. 5.

16.
 Sadker and Sadker,
Failing at Fairness
, p. 224.

17.
 “The War on Boys,” National Desk, PBS, April 9, 1999.

18.
 Marie Franklin, “The Toll of Gender Roles,”
Boston Sunday Globe,
November 3, 1996, p. H9.

19.
 Abigail J. Stewart, Janet Malley, Danielle LaVague, eds.,
Transforming Science and Engineering: Advancing Academic Women
(Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007), p. 4.

20.
 ADVANCE website:
www.portal.advance.vt.edu/index.php
(accessed June 26, 2012).

21.
 Gender Equity Project website:
www.hunter.cuny.edu/genderequity/
(accessed June 26, 2012).

22.
 Virginia Valian,
Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), p. 13.

23.
 Ibid., p. 268.

24.
 Ibid., p. 34.

25.
 Ibid., p. 38.

26.
 Ibid., p. 332.

27.
 Ibid., p. 67.

28.
 Lise Eliot,
Pink Brain, Blue Brain
(New York: Mariner Books, 2010), p. 115.

29.
 Patricia Leigh Brown, “Supporting Boys or Girls When the Line Isn't Clear,”
New York Times
, December 6, 2006.

30.
 Elizabeth Spelke, panel discussion, Impediments to Change: Revisiting the Women in Science Question, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, March 21, 2005. Also cited here:
www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html
.

31.
 David Geary,
Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences
(Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1998), p. 315.

32.
 See, for example, David Geary,
Male, Female
; Steven Rhoads,
Taking Sex Differences Seriously
(San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004); Baron-Cohen,
The Essential Difference
;
Jerre Levy and Doreen Kimura, “Men, Women and the Sciences,” in Christina Hoff Sommers, ed.,
The Science on Women and Science
(Washington, DC: AEI, 2010). See also OCED,
Pisa Results: What Students Know and Can Do—Student Performance in Reading, Mathematics and Science
, 2010, p. 14. In this study of student performance in seventy nations, girls outperformed boys in reading by large margin; boys outperformed girls in math by moderate margin. More girls than boys were among the top achievers in reading: 2.4 percent of girls and .05 percent of boys scored 90 percent or better; in math, 3.4 percent of girls and 6.6 percent of boys scored 90 percent or better.

33.
 Steven Pinker,
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
(New York: Viking Press, 2002), p. 350.

34.
 Marco Del Giudice, Tom Booth, and Paul Irwing, “The Distance Between Mars and Venus: Measuring Global Sex Differences in Personality,”
PLoS ONE
7, no. 1 (2012). See also David P. Schmitt et al., “Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman? Sex Differences in Big Five Personality Traits Across 55 Cultures,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
94 (2008), pp. 168–182.